A poem in Vietnamese by Thanh Tâm Tuyền
Translator: Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm
Breathe easy the thin air up high
Reserve breaths in the pole’s icy wind
Ironclad cold.
Behind the coming and going of clouds
Beneath the deep dark soil
Sounds like. A disappearance.
The mountainous avalanche
The rupture of the eardrum
I’m flustered by the clouds of white dust.
Nurturing a sad flame for no reason at all
Decisive self-immolation
Mummifications in how many layers of the sky.
—
LÊN CAO
Lên cao không khí thở nhẹ loãng
Thở kín buốt gió địa cực
Theo cơn đồng thiếp lạnh ngời.
Dưới vực hút khói mây xông toả
Dưới sâu xa mặt đất chìm
Vần vụ. Biệt tăm.
Sụt lở rặng núi tuyết
Màng nhĩ rách bươm
Tối mắt bụi trắng xóa chập chùng.
Hàn băng lửa trầm u vô thuỷ
Thiêu đốt mình mẩy như cặn ý
Ướp giá khô biết mấy lớp trời.
11-95
Thanh Tâm Tuyền (1936-2006), real name Dư Văn Tâm, was a poet, as well as critic, editor, fiction writer, and playwright. He was born in Vinh, moved to Saigon in 1954, emigrated to the US in 1983, and died in Minnesota in 2006. (Source: Wikipedia)
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm, the blogger, poet, and translator, was born in 1971 in Phu Nhuan, Saigon, Vietnam. The pharmacist currently lives and works in Western Sydney, Australia.
Nguyễn Thị Phương Trâm 
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